Acebeam H16 Review – (Nichia 519a, 650 lumens, Dual Fuel)

Today I am taking a look at the newest right angle headlamp from Acebeam with the H16. It’s a single emitter light with 2 available LED options, in the AA/14500 size format. The H16 shares a lot of design and functions with the similarly sized Pokelite AA that I have reviewed last year. Thanks to Acebeam for sending this one to me to look at and review. Any discounts or deals that I have for this light will be posted in the description below this video along with links to my social media pages. 

 

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See the H16 on Acebeam’s website https://www.acebeam.com/h16

 

Packaging & Accessories

The packaging is a white retail box with color photos and highlights of the light on the front, there are no technical specs on the back like you commonly see, just contact info for Acebeam. The light and accessories sit inside a plastic tray inside and it comes with the light itself, and Acebeam branded 900mAh 14500 battery with USB-C charging on board, a short USB-A to C charging cable, the headband, 2 extra orings, and user manual. 

 

Construction & Design

The light is made from aluminum and hard anodized in either a black or gray color. The black which I have here is the high CRI option and it’s only available in black. The gray body color is exclusive to the cool white emitter too. The design characteristics are pretty similar with the Pokelit AA model with a few differences. 

The tail cap is flat and has a strong magnet that easily holds up the light. It features nice knurling for grip for easy battery removal. The body tube has ribs in the center and places for the clip to mount at the front or rear. The body tube itself is glued to the head of the light.

The head has some fins cut opposite the emitter for heat dissipation. The electronic switch is sitting at the top of the head and is covered by a shallow rubber/silicon boot that’s smooth. The business end of the light has a shallow bezel, glass lens, and smooth reflector. Markings on the light are pretty minimal, with the CCT and CRI being marked on the side of the head, the brand and model being marked just under the bezel, and the export and battery marks on the bottom of the cap.

 

User Interface

The UI here is very simple with the electronic switch found on top of the head. With the 14500 battery, you have 3 modes without memory mode. Click and hold to come on in the lowest mode or double press from off to turn on in low.. Once on click and hold to go up in mode groups. Double click to turbo when on and triple click to a slow strobe. Single short click to turn off. It’s a very simple user interface that I think anyone can understand. Mechanical lockout is easy to trigger by just breaking the seal on the tail cap.

 

Retention

The Clip is an uncaptured dual-direction pocket clip that can mount two ways on the H16. You can mount it near the rear of the light to give you a very deep carry, since the clip actually goes past the end of the light. The downside of this is the button will be inside the pocket and in my opinion easier to accidentally trigger, although it does still require a long press to turn on and comes on in low. The other place it mounts is hear the head but a fair amount of the light will stick out when doing this.

The H16 comes with an orange elastic 2 strap headband. It has a nice comfortable silicone mount, but requires the clip to be removed before mounting. On the sides you do have some reflective markings and Acebeam branding, holes in the material for style and ventilation, and then on the inside you have silicone grip strips to help it keep in place on a helmet. I found it to be lightweight and comfortable to wear.

 

LED & Beam

The H16 I have here is using a Nichia 519A LED in neutral white. I measured this LED at 4912k and 97.9Ra on my Opple light meter, without any color casts in the DUV data. The beam here is fairly floody with a large well defined hotspot and not a ton of spill. Good for the application here, as it’s optimized for closer-up use. There is some PWM that I could measure on my meter when on High but it’s very fast and I can’t see it with my eyes. 

 

Output

Since this light is dual fuel and will run on both a Liion or NiMH battery, I will give some output data for both. One thing to note here is that light is available with a different LED that is brighter if you wish but you do give up the neutral tint and high CRI. All measurements were taken at the 30-second mark according to FL1 Standards. In general on the Li-ion battery that I measured on my Texas Ace Lumen tube was lower than Acebeam’s claims. If I had to guess they are listing startup lumens, not FL1 standards. For my Alkaline/NIMH tests, I used an Amazon Basics high-capacity AA battery. Acebeam doesn’t give official outputs for the use of this light with Alkaline or NiMH, and I think thats due to the extremely low outputs in the first 3 modes. The only one I got to give me a solid reading was medium at about 2 lumens. The light is only really useful on Turbo and that steps down pretty quickly which I will get to in the Runtime section coming up soon. My advice would be to stick with the Li-ion battery the light comes with and really only use a AA or NiMH in an emergency situation. 

 

Heat & Runtimes

I focused primarily on the heat and runtime on the H16 when using the included Li-ion 14500 battery since that’s really where the light is best. Turbo lasts for 2 minutes to complete the total stepdown to about 180 lumens while staying above 500 lumens for the first 55 seconds. From here it’s a pretty steady decline and looks to be somewhat unregulated. Peak heat was at 18 minutes at about 48C on the exterior of the light. High output is an almost identical runtime, with the only difference being a few more total minutes of runtime. 

The NiMH on turbo mode the H16 has a pretty minimal output time of less than a minute before stepping down to about 35 lumens. It will run at this state for about 9:10:00, and then continue to run past 24 hours at sub-lumen outputs. This really isn’t very effective light in most situations though. 

 

Recharging

While the H16t itself doesn’t have built-in charging, the optional Acebeam 14500 battery does have built-in charging via USB-C. I had no issues charging this via USB-C to C or PD. Charging here is at 0.5C about .45A at the maximum for most of the charging time. The overall charging time is 2:30:00 at which time the LED on the battery itself goes from red to green. The battery itself has LVP built into it. I measured LVP at 3.103v and full at 4.174v on the Liion. The NiMH measured 1.23v when the light shut off. 

 

Conclusion

The Acebeam H16 Fishing Headlamp is a decent light if you’re looking for small form factor, neutral white and high CRI. Just be aware that it doesn’t have the most output nor can it sustain those larger numbers for that long. I don’t think this is an issue as long as your use case is up close needs. I would recommend the headlamp for more specialized applications where light weight and size is of high importance. I wouldn’t recommend this headlamp if you plan to run it with a AA or NiMH batter. It’s performance and output runtime is really optimized for Li-Ion batteries. I would only use AA or NiMH in times of emergency. Keep in mind this does come in a different LED model where you can get up to 1000 lumens on turbo too if you’re needing a bit more output. 

Sofirn HS20 Review (2700 Lumens, High CRI, USB-C)

It’s been a little while since I took a look at a new headlamp, well that ends today with the Sofirn HS20, a dual emitter headlamp with onboard USB-C charging and a really simple, yet effective interface. Thanks to Sofirn for sending this to me to look at and tell you about. I have been using it the past few weekends for auto and home maintenance. 

 

Watch this review on YouTube: 

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Enjoy this review? Buy me a Coffee/Beer: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Liquidretro

Find all my social media at https://linktr.ee/liquidretro

See my Amazon Store with my gear recommendations https://www.amazon.com/shop/liquidretro

 

Purchase Links

Amazon Coupon Code to Save 20% “20R4QHLW

Sofirn Direct Coupon Code to save 15% “SDT4CYG2

Coupon Codes are valid until 6/20/22

 

Packaging & Accessories

Typical basic packaging here from Sofrin, just enough to ship the light safely and nothing more. Accessories include the headlamp, the over the 3 strap headband, 3000mAh 18650 button top battery, USB-A to USB-C charging cable, a lanyard, manual,  and a box of extra origins. 

 

Construction & Design

The light is made of aluminum and hard anodized black, the most durable color. The design here uses the proven form factor of keeping the battery low horizontally, and the emitters above it. The light has 2 emitters one for flood and the other for flow, and I will talk more about those in the LED & Beam section. Above the emitters are the buttons to turn each on and adjust modes. Each are independent which makes the UI here easy. Each button has a green LED’s in side as well that server as a voltage indicator too.

When looking at the emitters, the left side cap unscrews to remove the battery, it goes in plus side facing the charging port which is on the right side under a tail cap showing the USB symbol. Markings are minimal with just the name, model number and battery on the front. On the back you have your CE markings and serial number. On lights with the SFT40 LED, the serial number will end in SF.

 

Retention

The headband it basic but very functional. It’s the standard 3-piece which for this light might be overkill as it’s not that heavy but I like the 3 strap designs as it keeps things in place better I think. There is no grip on the inside of the bands as you see sometimes on premium lights. The elastic has Sofirn woven into the elastic. All this attaches to a silicon mount that attaches to the light inboard of the tail caps. 

 

Size & Weight

I measured the length at 85.53mm, the diameter on the tailcaps at 26mm. Height came in at 47mm, and thickness at 24mm on the tube. Weight with the battery and headband comes in at 6.22oz. The light is IPX68 water and dust rated and has impact resistance to 1M. Here are some comparison photos to other 18650 headlamps. 

 

LED & Beam

The light ships with 2 emitters in 2 different versions. The floody emitter (smaller lens) is a Samsung LH351D in 4750k tint with a CRI of 96 according to my Opple meter. This is the same on both versions. The difference is in the larger Spot emitter. Mine shipped with the Cree XHP 50.2 LED that I measured at 5360k with a CRI of 68. The XHP 50.2 is a bit of an odd choice for a throwy emitter, and as a result Sofirn now sells a version that replaces the XHP with an SFT40 emitter which should increase the throw distances substantially.  When both emitters were on together I measured 5180k and 75CRI. There is some PWM here on all modes, but its minimal.

 

Measured Outputs

I will put up a chart here of my measured outputs vs what Sofirn claims. In general, they are pretty accurate. 

 

Runtime & Heat

With 5 brightness modes, 2 LED’s there are a lot of combinations here, I focused on the higher outputs here to make output graphs with. All of these were tested with the LH351D and XHP50.2 version of the light, and tested on my calibrated (but still homemade) lumen tube and the included 3000mAh Sofirn Battery.

Under Turbo with both emitters on, at the 30 second mark, I measured 2220 lumens, and this declined pretty quickly within 4 minutes it was down to 290 lumens because the heat had climbed to 55C. As the light cools slightly it does step up in brightness to around 500 lumens. Effective runtime here was a little over 2 hours. The light remains on longer then this but only in eco mode. 

I then compared turbo on each emitter independently, and you can see the results of that.

I am currently running a few more runtime tests in High mode and will insert my findings of those here. I don’t expect any surprises. 

 

UI

The User Interface of a headlamp is important, and with the Sofirn HS20 It couldn’t be simpler. The light has 2 emitters, and a dedicated button to operate each. It’s the same UI on both, and neither is codependent on the other. The light has memory mode so when you press either of the buttons it comes on in the mode previously used except for eco or turbo. To change modes you just press and hold to cycle through low, medium, and high. To get into eco just long press from off, and to get to turbo just double click. 

 

Recharging

Recharging here is accomplished via USB-C. It’s under an aluminum screw-on cap on the end of the light. Under the cap, there is a red and green LED’s to give charge status indicators. The light is capable of charging via USB-C PD, and will run when charging but at reduced output. From LVP at 2.798v to Full at 4.165v it took 2:18:00 to fully charge, with the charge rate reaching about 1.5A during the CC charging phase. 

 

Conclusion

Sofrin has another good light on it’s hand here with the HS20. It’s basic UI makes it really functional, and easy to use while at the same time being really effective. With my Cree XHP50.2 version here there isn’t a ton of difference between flood and throw, but that should be greatly improved with Sofirn choosing to swap it out for a SFT40 LED. It’s the version I would recommend you pick up because of that reason. 

The tints are pretty neutral, and I like that it has the flood beam be high CRI, and pretty neural despite a small amount of green tint, which is common for the LH351D LED’s. 

 

Overall a good affordable headlamp that should suit a variety of tasks well. I do wish it had a lower eco mode since 5 lumens is as low as it goes and that’s only in flood mode. My preference would be more around 1 lumen. I think everyone needs a headlamp as you know if you have seen other headlamp reviews I have done. This would be an excellent pickup in my opinion. 

 

Sofirn has generously provided a discount if you choose to pick up this light, I will have that info in the description along with links to where you can pick it up on Sofirn’s website and on Amazon.  

 

Purchase Links

Amazon Coupon Code to Save 20% “20R4QHLW

Sofirn Direct Coupon Code to save 15% “SDT4CYG2

Coupon Codes are valid until 6/20/22